In this photo taken Sept. 7, 2012, California Rep. candidate Eric Swalwell speaks at left as Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif. walks off the stage during an Alameda County Democratic Lawyers Club endorsement meeting at Everett & Jones Barbeque in Oakland, Calif. Pete Stark is used to coasting to re-election in the liberal enclave of the San Francisco Bay area he has represented since the end of the Vietnam War. Legislative gerrymandering kept him in a heavily Democratic district, and California's primary system virtually ensured that he would emerge to face Republican or fringe-party challengers with almost no chance of beating him in November. All that has changed this year, as Californians deal with two major political reforms that are remaking the congressional landscape and creating competitive races for the first time in many years. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Photo: Jeff Chiu, Associated Press

In this photo taken Sept. 7, 2012, California Rep. candidate Eric...

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Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 4, 2009, before the Judiciary Committee hearing on a "Truth Commission" to investigate the Bush administration's national security policies. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP

Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering testifies on Capitol Hill...

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Senior United States Senator Dianne Feinstein speaking to The Chronicle in San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday, September 25, 2012.

The killing of U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens has become more than a personal and national tragedy - Republicans, from presidential nominee Mitt Romney on down, have seized on it as evidence of the Obama administration's foreign policy incompetence, or worse.

So it's interesting that among the dignitaries who will attend Tuesday's memorial for the ambassador under the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda is the man the administration has picked to investigate whether missteps in Washington contributed to Stevens' killing in Benghazi.

Thomas Pickering, a retired diplomat who was once the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was recently drafted by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clintonto head a review examining the security arrangements at the consulate where Stevens, 52, was killed Sept. 11. He'll represent the State Department at the service, which is open to the public.

"I would say it is a very smart defensive move," said Abraham Sofaer, a senior fellow at Stamford's Hoover Institution. "Since he is investigating the matter in Libya, he won't be able to comment to the press."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee and has raised questions about the security in Benghazi, will be in attendance as well. So will Libya's ambassador to the United States, Ali Aujali.

Mail maul: Things are certainly heating up in the East Bay race between California's longest-serving congressman, Rep. Pete Stark, and the upstart Dublin City Councilman Eric Swalwell.

Stark, fighting for his political life, is bombarding his southern Alameda County district with a mailer featuring an elderly couple and the headline, "Putting seniors at risk." It accuses Swalwell of wanting to end "Social Security as we know it."

Swalwell's offense was calling for a change in Social Security rules after The Chronicle reported that three of the 80-year-old Stark's children - one is 11 and two are 15 - are receiving monthly Social Security checks because he's older than 65.

Swalwell seized on the news and called for an end to such payments.

"I just don't think the kids of a multimillionaire, who's getting another $174,000 a year for being a congressman, should be getting benefits," Swalwell said.

Too bad, fired back Stark campaign manager Michael Terris: "What he's talking about is opening a Pandora's box. If he doesn't know that, then he should go back to school."

Mirkarimi outtakes: In a story like the suspension and return of San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, with enough twists and turns to make a Hollywood movie, there are inevitably a few interesting outtakes featuring the leading players:

-- Mirkarimi's wife, Eliana Lopez, heads back to her native Venezuela on Sunday to begin work on a film. The couple's 3-year-old son will go with her. Her lawyer Paula Canny tells us, "She'll be back, but she is going to be getting on with her own life now, too."

-- Supervisor John Avalos- who cast one of the four votes that led to Mirkarimi's reinstatement - says that although no one in City Hall ever lobbied him, "for the past 10 months, everywhere I went people wanted to talk about the case."

Avalos said many people mistook him for the suspended sheriff and would tell him to "hang in there."

"Interestingly, a lot of black people all across the city strongly supported Ross, which I thought was pretty significant," Avalos said.

-- In terms of taking heat, Supervisor Christina Olagueappears to be leading the pack.

Chinatown powerhouse Rose Pak, whose support may have been the biggest factor in getting Mayor Ed Leeto appoint Olague to the board - and who has been raising big money for her election next month - said she was "disgusted" by Olague's vote in favor of Mirkarimi.

It was pretty clear Olague had made up her mind how she was going to vote before Tuesday's supervisors meeting began. She was spotted during the nine-hour session checking her computer for deals at the Grand Hotel in Oslo, Norway.

On the money: A San Francisco fundraiser is planned Tuesday for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, featuring top Democrats in the state from Gov. Jerry Brownon down.

The $1,000-a-head San Francisco event is being chaired by former Mayor (and current Chronicle columnist) Willie Brown, along with Janet and Clint Reilly.

The Reilly connection is especially interesting. Clint not only tried to unseat Brown in a run for mayor in 1999, but he also fired Feinstein as a client back in his political consultant days a decade earlier, when she was running for governor.

"True," Feinstein says of her relationship with Reilly. "But that's far in the past, and I'm very grateful to Clint."